


Numb is the Body She Wears

by how_terribly_terrible



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anger, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Cunnilingus, Dom/sub Undertones, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love Again, Friendship, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Love/Hate, My First Work in This Fandom, Pain, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, Sexual Fantasy, Smut, Teasing, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension, War, and hes not really affecting too much, basically season 8 is somewhat the same only with petyr now, but he also does uwu, but her hunger for petyr in love and in hate gets in the way, canon divergence after 7x07, happy-ish ending, i haven't read the books fully nor have i recapped myself on the lore so apologies in advance, ill keep updating tags as i write, mentions of rape/non-con, petyr is resurrected, sansa is still bitter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-04 20:02:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21203276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/how_terribly_terrible/pseuds/how_terribly_terrible
Summary: Sansa was bitter. No, not simply that. Sansa deeply desired vengeance. Was death enough for the Mockingbird? Or was it only suitable that the bird was to be plucked from his deathbed and remain in this gods-forsaken life as long as the Red Wolf demanded? Honor demanded something greater from him...as well as something else deeply-seeded within her. And only the gods both new and old could predict what was in Sansa Stark and Petyr Baelish's foreseeable future...[Canon Divergence After 7x07]





	1. The Trial of Petyr Baelish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Nothing turns to hate so bitter as what once was love.” - Laurell K. Hamilton

”Thank you for all your wonderful lessons, Lord Baelish...” Lady Sansa had trailed, with the slightest ring of grand yet icy sophistication in her eloquent voice. On the contrary, and most ironically, the Red Wolf still could not manage an iron claw around her whirling and stomach-wrenching emotions that poured down her flushed cheeks in her adversary’s final moments. “I will never forget them,” Sansa finished, her voice seemingly faltering in its descent. 

She felt ill; most distressingly unwell, as bile reached the edge of her throat while her head throbbed simultaneously in both anguish and fright. 

Yet what frightened her? Sansa Stark, the heir of Winterfell, the blood of Ned and Catelyn Stark and the North of Westeros itself? What frightened her beaten, yet compacted steel bones seemed laughably pathetic. 

But why?

Seeing Littlefinger, Petyr Baelish, the man she owed her grueling suffering and yet her own survival to. The man who had thrown her like a runt to scavenging beasts known as the skin-flaying Bolton’s. The Mockingbird, a man of tyrant’s craft with the amount of charm as a garden of white lilies, fallen to his knees with his tongue spitting every whimpering apology like a serpent surrounded by predators, truly terrified her.

Yet...why? 

Throughout the whole damnable trial, one so startlingly and easily crafted by the likes of her kin Bran and Arya, had unmasked the fiend before her.

But how?

It was a question she had to ask herself, which was answered in a matter of moments. He was seemingly foreign. In fact, he was so foreign to Sansa, that even Ramsay himself could skin and flog the man and yet, Lord Baelish, now maskless, would still be squabbling amongst the Northerners with love declarations still falling from his mouth like pouring rain. And it would still be all unmistakably...true. So horribly true, now that he was soulfully naked before her. 

Love.

Love was not what she wanted him to feel, she’ll admit. What Sansa wanted was to see a cowardly fool tack to his heels and bolt for the door, his cape getting caught between his legs while he thrashed and begged for her mercy. That would’ve been easier, far more simpler to witness than the lovesick man that awaited Arya’s swift blade. A lovesick man...who wasn’t Littlefinger.

This was exactly why she was terrified to the steel bindings of her flesh and bones. Or a time least part of it.

Yet still. How was he unmasked, why was she subdued to this terrible predicament?

He was guilty, Littlefinger was. Everyone knew. And those who didn’t wouldn’t need persuasion to see it either. No man or maid alive was guiltier than Littlefinger aside from possibly Cersei herself. But Petyr Baelish, the other side that was just as guilty, wasn’t hiding this time. He knew his guilt, but he knew his love as well. He needed not to tell the echoing walls his love for Sansa or Cat, as it was clearer than the blood that had been spilling from his hands since his first step into the world. Yet when the words had left his mouth, in the form of honesty his silver-tongue could manage, an underlying voice told Sansa that Littlefinger was already dead by the powerful admittance. 

That was how. The question had been truly answered, and whether she could admit it to herself in the moment was out of the question. That was how he had been unmasked and how Littlefinger had died.

He had been executed the moment he confessed, and that the man before her was not the heinous villain any longer.

But if he had been stripped bare, why was she still terrified?

The man she now had to see honorably executed from Arya’s dagger was Petyr Baelish, the guilty child who awaited death now so sickeningly sweet. Sansa Stark was terrified of the child that she once adored, because of his horrible love and his reliance on a mask that sought him ill.

She was angry and rightfully so at the monster he had become, yet seeing him so human and love-stricken underneath, showed her truly what she would have become if she had followed him blindly. Let herself destroy the core from within like a disease where not even love could save her, just like him. This completely, of all things she had bared witness to, was exactly why the Red Wolf was terrified. Angrily and unmistakably terrified.

Still facing Petyr, she dared not allow her eyes wander from the Mockingbird. His bottom lip quivered and nearly matched the rhythmic pounding of her drumming heart. Almost as if both were completely in sync. Tears fell seconds after the other from his clouded green eyes, and he eyed Arya approaching him with her hands fastened around her dagger. 

“I feel no pity for you. This is all your doing, you bastard,” Sansa thought in rage while he struggled to form his final words. “You did this to yourself, and not even the humane child in you can save you from yourself, Petyr.”

”Sansa-!” Petyr began before Arya quite literally cut him off with the swish of her blade. Blood spouted from impact in a stomach-curdling noise, Petyr’s hand flying to his gash while he struggled to speak. “I...” Petyr gurgled with the blood rising out of his lips, and Sansa felt as if she was going to vomit at the sight. 

And with that, one of the most horrid men to grace Westeros fell to the stone floor with a loud impact. 

But...something felt different within Sansa. Something within her core now shifted after seeing the sight. Something she could have never predicted to feel. 

She was far from satisfied, unlike the likes of her fellow Northmen and family. They stood in fellow facade of victory and motionless peace, contrary to the Red Wolf. Sansa wasn’t in a positive state of mind for anything so to grace herself yet.

In fact, she felt furious. “That’s it...?” Sansa thought horrified and enraged. “No suffering? None of the sort? He’s just...gone?”

This was outrageous to the Red Wolf. He deserved far more than this quick ticket away from any other possibilities. Gods, even Ramsay had at least spent his last, wheezing gasps suffering at the jaws of his dogs. 

But Petyr was just...dead?

No, he shouldn’t have gotten away with such a light, sparing death such as that. Her tears continued to fall as her breath quickened. She didn’t deliver what honor demanded, she spat in its face and let the criminal who had hurt her and countless others enter death with a single scratch.

Sansa felt her fists ball and white hot fury danced within the confines of her chest. “No, he needed excruciating pain. He didn’t deserve a ticket away. He couldn’t leave like that.”

But it was too late. Despite her brimming anger for the man she once loved with all of her feeble, ivory strengthened heart, the same one he sought to crush and mold into a pawn for the Bolton’s usage while he frolicked away with his boundless crimes tied to his back, she couldn’t undo the unjust death he had hardly suffered. 

And Sansa’s blood boiled mercilessly in return. He couldn’t get away that easily. He just couldn’t. And yet he did, all thanks to her.

”Are you alright?” Arya had asked Sansa while they stood in the harshly frozen air. 

No, she was far from it. It had been nearly an hour or so after Petyr Baelish’s demise, and her fury still only managed a simmer. She still had the aching thoughts that the Mockingbird had been given leniency in his death. And it continued to haunt her without ceasing.

”It’s strange...” Sansa huffed finally, staring unblinkingly at the mud and snow concoction that was scattered across the pavement below. “In his own horrible way...I believe he loved me.”

She could almost hear Jon’s audible disgust at her words, as he was the least fond of Petyr and Littlefinger’s presence in Winterfell. Yet Arya, the woman she was now, didn’t give Sansa the offended reaction she would’ve expected from any other Northman. She could sense her sister’s mutual, weird understanding in the silence that they remained in.

”...And yet, he was a coward.”

Sansa couldn’t help the bitterness that seemed through her voice. She had tried to mask the anguish and anger she had brewing because of Petyr’s demise and the trial in a whole, yet knowing Arya she probably already figured out why.

“All men are cowards, given the right stimulus,” Arya responded, yet Sansa shook her head with a dry smirk.

”Littlefinger wasn’t all men. He wasn’t even half of one...” Sansa retorted, adding bite to the trail. 

“Yet you believe he loved you, and you think of him as less than a man?” 

“He loved me with all he could, but like himself it wasn’t much. And like his bravery, he couldn’t hold onto that love the second he needed some way out of it...” Sansa responded, her eyes clouding with a blunt force of icy air that threatened to break her glassy eyes into shivering tears.

”I didn’t see the monster that tore apart our family in those final moments. I’ve seen many, but that wasn’t a true one. Which-”

”-Means he was finally vulnerable? I know. It struck me that I would’ve been such a coward like him if I continued following him blindly. So yes, he was a monster,” Sansa snapped, her teeth locking into a grit. Despite the terror she felt earlier, it was replaced in the winter winds with the common distress that tied her in the past hour. 

Nonetheless, Lady Sansa could sense Arya turn to her with a look of curiosity it seemed. The Red Wolf had given herself up to the swirling emotions within her, and tears stroked her cheeks like a knife wound.

”...You still haven’t answered my question,” Arya came around.

”Isn’t it obvious? I’m not alright, I won’t be. I just gave the man who started the bloody War of the Five Kings a needle prick as penance for his crimes.”

Sansa could hear Arya’s dry chuckle even before it had slipped through her mouth. “Sansa, we’re lucky to have even outsmarted a man such as Littlefinger. Isn’t that penance enough?”

”It can’t be. He’s been prone to flaws in his inquiries many times before. This was only one of many.”

Sansa brushed a strand of crimson hair that had fallen across her cheek. She didn’t dare bring attention to the fact that her own tears were now possibly noticeable to Arya, as if ignoring them entirely would snuff away their existence. 

“...Seeking revenge won’t do yourself any good now. At least not from him. He’s gone, Sansa. You did the right thing,” Arya countered.

”I didn’t even execute him either. It was all thanks to you,” Sansa said, with quite jealousy than she had intended. 

“I’m just the executioner. The Northmen saw the discipline you took for House Stark today. It was brave and just, all because of you.”

And maybe that was so. She couldn’t overpower the hammering thoughts of what could have been, however. Having Petyr finally take recognition for the suffering he put her through with the Boltons and the suffering he gave her family didn’t cease from fleeting in and out of her daydreams within the hour. 

She needed to find a way, some terrible way if it must be, to punish the Mockingbird further. Lady Sansa felt morbidly mad for suggesting such thoughts to herself, but he couldn’t escape from the North that easily. 

Perhaps if she dabbled in darkness, or sought it in the coldness of night, she could further her vengeance for the man who created her spiraling loss of warmth, love, comfort, and camaraderie. 

Perhaps, if she just waited, and her answer would arrive like the knock of an old comrade. She could punish and fulfill the dastardly devious desire she needed for Petyr’s suffering. For him to own the truth of his motives behind his wretched mask.

....Yet if only the Red Wolf could see where her true motives for the vengeance lied: the justice for her family...or for simply herself. And whether it be from the confines of anger or a broken heart remains to be seen deep inside her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone!! my name is ash, and i’m new here lmao!! so yes, sansa is a little unreasonable and i hope that was clear! she’s obviously thinking selfishly and whether that is because of her anger at what he did or at what he caused her remains to be seen!! anyways, hope you guys enjoy this fic and i can’t wait to write more!


	2. White As Worry, Black As Blurry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The young lady speaks to a crow with a small beak. He laughs and fetches her a flask. Water spilled, provided, and filled. The maiden’s thirst was quenched at last. Come the dog through a wintery-bleak fog. She carries a babe in the flurry. In her fur was a note from a lover. White as worry, black as blurry.” — My Quote

A cold night's sleep had passed Sansa like a plague.

After being bombarded with such requests for a celebration about the horrid Littlefinger's death, she found herself at the mercy of being cruelly wide awake. An itch here or there would scuttle across her arm or neck, yet the sickening twist that was her stomach and lower abdomen was the culprit of relentless and unwavering attention. This hadn't been the first of her sleepless nighttides, as Ramsay was certain to make sure of that. Though this night wasn't near comparability, it still wrung her uncomfortably. She then happened to curse her restless mind for displaying sickening inquiries or contemplations. Such devious thoughts about what was happening to _his_ dead body, where it lay now, and what creature of the black night could be devouring his blood-soaked body...

Squeezing her eyes tightly against the pressure of such gruesome thoughts, she found it ironic how in the dead of such a dry, wintery night that she laid awake with such thoughts. So very ironic to the Red Wolf how repulsed she was at the idea her adversary's flesh was rotting when she'd been calculating a plan to worsen his fate. 

Perhaps she was just concerned with the fact his body wasn't preserved for later misery, and how possibly that could affect bits or pieces during...during...

"Damn the gods," Sansa muttered hoarsely, her eyes flying open to catch the thought with strangling anger. "How would I even be able to accomplish such lengths?" She thought bitterly, feeling the phantasy trickle down and out of mind as if it were only a fool's paradise and nothing more.

The Lady Sansa had heard of such magic; only once in a dark ghost tale on an adolescent night. The shadow-bringers of the ancient Red God, priestesses that lurked in prestige orgies while using fire and smoke to conjure the unnatural. Her mother had favored such stories upon nights where Sansa was particularly naughty. Sansa remembered quite clearly of when her mother would reprimand the Starkling child, lest she end up in a hideous witch's claws, who could conjure a demon to devour her whole.

It hadn't been the first time to cross her mind; the thought of a witch's magic to be utilized. By gods, with all such horrid creatures rising from out of scrolls or tapestries and into the life of men, the witches couldn't have been just legends as well. Could they? Bran's Greensight was a form of damned yet godly magic, Arya had met the Faceless who had harnessed magical qualities. Could they possibly know of such a shadow-bringer who could do the unspeakable for the Red Wolf? Surely they did. 

"But they wouldn't tell me their secrets, of course they'd think of me mad," Sansa grumbled, pulling the damp and rigid sheets over her ice-pricked flesh. Regrettably, she had forget to add extra logs to the ember-ridden fireplace; thus resulting in her possible sleepless night. Yet, despite all, she knew the culprit of her stolen night. One that could fade, or could simply remain, with a message clear as a frozen window as the girl drifted back to sleep:

Sansa would bing Petyr Baelish back from the cold grasp of death...and back into the Starkling's claws.

Yet a cold, slimy breath of unease still slithered across Sansa’s neck, whispering and settling in thoughts of dismay towards Petyr and her goal. She hadn’t given much thought to where spirits returned after death, as she knew many to believe in the gods’ wrath for sinners alike.

Perhaps Petyr would be filling his due wherever he was? Perhaps there was not a need for indulging in such unnatural matters?

A pull in the deeply seeded core of Sansa’s heart defied the conscience, and she knew that whatever it would take, unnatural or not, she would bring him back.

...But solely for the good of Westeros, of course.

Awakening the next day was trifling.

Her muscles and bones ached from the loss of sleep, yet her mind was jittering nearly with rage. 

Down in the cold, murky halls of the Winterfell crypts, Sansa paid a solemn visit to the family whom she had not nearly avenged. Luckily, Sansa hadn’t the worry of Northern duties, at least not in the moment. So she best spent her idle time wasting away in a place where her and her anger could be alone.

And despite the Red Wolf’s rage-filled mind, it was as if the flickering flame before her had its own pair of devious eyes watching back, and she could see them so clearly.

The more Sansa treated her eyes to a glance, the more she felt captivated by its relentless taunting. 

It spoke in many words, the candle did. Yet she couldn’t differentiate whether which one of her sins it decided to slander in its glowing might. With each drip of wax mirroring the own tears that plummeted down her cheeks that fateful day of her father’s execution, Sansa couldn’t help but see the clear tapestry of her first scarring memory. 

“And it was all because of Petyr,” Sansa muttered through gritted teeth, tears now swelling within her Stark-grey eyes.

When Bran had told her the treachery Petyr committed, Sansa had been speechless. It seemed all so likely, as if the whispering of her own ghosts and demons had known his scheme all along.

It was so terribly Littlefinger, what he had done. 

Sansa thought in terror how she had willingly trusted, once loved a man who destroyed her family and nearly her rightful home, all for the sake of some deep seeded chaos and joy that fulfilled in him in turn.

Littlefinger had been so careful; so conniving, and yet his downfall was at the hands of a mere Stark girl? It should fill her aching soul with bitter joy how she was able to outsmart a monster as he. She should be planning for a celebration party for the doom Lady Sansa and her family served with the slash of a dagger to a weakened adversary, especially one that had begged and sobbed in his last gasping breaths.

Yet of course, she could not dare. She wanted more, from him and herself. And these haunting thoughts that plagued her only served as a reminder.

A reminder for why Petyr had to face his cowardice in front of her, maskless or not-

“It doesn’t matter what we want.”

Sansa nearly jumped out of sheer fright from the voice of Bran. Her brother’s nearly omnipotent presence had served Winterfell for a near-mythic experience, as his lurking and noble sight provided for their very own mythical being aside from Ghost himself. 

It wasn’t intentional on the Stark boy’s part. Or, at least Sansa didn’t think so. Bran was still human, despite his god-like gifts, some part of him had to be. She often wondered out of sheer pity what it felt like; to be seemingly cursed with such a gift to see every outcome of anyone. When someone would eat a ration next, when someone would fall ill and die, or even when a lady or lord indulged other such desires...

Sansa imagined it to be the least pleasant experience, but she seemed to be the only compassionate mind within Winterfell aside from Arya. But even occasionally, Sansa felt lurked upon by her young brother. The Lady Stark tried to exclude such thoughts, yet she still wasn’t immune to the eerie air that surrounded her brother and his ability to know where, when, and how exactly a being was to exist...

“When we get it, we then want something else. Isn’t that what he used to say?” Bran continued, his eyes as cold as the crypts themselves. She eyed him in his dark cloak, spotted and adorned with flakes of winter’s snow. His chair, along with Bran ironically, never failed to be as eerily quiet as her brother’s demeanor when it came to an entrance of his grace. How he managed a trip into the crypts was beyond her, as possibly a squire could've helped him in or possibly Sam. Yet this was what Bran favored to do, seemingly materialize wherever he needed to be, as if the gods were his escorts at times.

Sansa stifled a chuckle and forced herself to dry away the damp tear stains that painted her cheeks. Something about Bran Stark’s presence made her feel young; almost incomprehensibly small. As if he were an ancient scholar with grey hair and the eyes of an elder Maester, with her a simple meek lass.

She felt Bran’s stone-hard stare watch Sansa straighten, yet he rose no finger or batted no eye to his sister’s foreign nature around him.

”You startled me, Bran,” Sansa muttered, feeling like a fool seconds later for stating such obvious words to such an all-knowing man.

Her sheepish embarrassment faded into an icy scowl when the words he spoke registered. She faced the stone, away from the candle and away from Bran, hearing Petyr’s own voice echo through her brain so freshly like the winter snow outside.

”Yes.” Sansa spoke through gritted teeth to force back any breezing emotion that could sweep through her. “Yes, that was one of many things Littlefinger used to say.”

Silence fell between the odd Starklings with such intensity that Sansa swear she could suffocate from it. She knew why he had come very well, as if it wasn’t obvious enough that he’d come to lecture her on her dastardly dire plans. 

But what would Bran Stark say of such plans? Certainly, an appropriate reaction would be to question the Red Wolf’s sanity. Or at least, try to tamper with it. 

Yet Bran himself was anything but appropriately sane, at least by the words of the common-folk.

”I suppose you’ve heard my thoughts...” Sansa inquired, her voice steadier than before when the thoughts of Petyr soaked her mind.

”I haven’t the need to hear any thoughts. Not for when I could see this moment since before my arrival,” responded Bran, in his cold voice that Sansa swore could shiver the dead. She chuckled, yet it was dry and out of place as soon as it left her lips, only serenading them both in a further awkward setting. “I suppose so.”

Another tense silence settled between the two; prompting Sansa to wonder if he was simply awaiting the moment where either spilled what needed to be said. In fact, the Red Wolf wondered if Bran spent every waking moment like this. Always awaiting the future and what it brought along with it like a gift or threat. Or simply, perhaps Bran was future himself now...

"I know what you must be thinking..." voiced Lady Stark, turning to her brother who, in the dim, flickering candle-light, gifted her a shift of emotion flit across his lips. The dim, soggy atmosphere that surrounded the crypts didn't ease her in the slightest, yet whatever ghoulish grin that snuck upon Bran's lips like a serpent chilled her further more than the cold ever could. It didn't mocked his features, or possibly even her, as it wasn't toothy nor wide, but a knowing, ancient curve of the lips that certainly captured the essence of winter. Sansa couldn't force herself away from such an eerie glow, which shined much clearer than the candle. His hands forced an envelope amongst the mounds of fur on his lap, like a father about to lecture a small infant. 

"I know it's complete chaos, what I'm planning on doing. But Bran-"

"Chaos...?" Bran inquired, his eyes squinting at Sansa. "You're much like him you know."

Sansa felt as if she had been tripped and greeted the stone floor with bruising hug. Her cheeks glowed in vermillion, nearly matching her scarlet locks that trickled down her back. Surely Bran hadn't meant the pinch that was this statement, but Sansa's anger now boiled uncontrollably. Or perhaps her all knowing brother meant it with every ounce of spite, as if to persuade her from these secrets she indulged in. It wouldn't work, but she couldn't fight away her glowering shriek that came next. "I'm nothing like Littlefinger, Bran. I assure you that."

"Maybe some day, my sister. We can all slip into the souls of occasional bodies that we once knew. It's why our personalities change," Bran noted, Sansa feeling her anger subsiding ever so slightly with his near-calming tone. "Isn't that what he would also say? Everything you've seen will be something you've seen before?"

"Well obviously, Bran. You see everything and know everything," Sansa grumbled, her remaining spite slipping through her lips. His smile flicked for a second, but she could sense it morphing from a knowing to a calloused one. "I do." Bran said simply, which pinched Sansa in the midst of his dry, dreary cockiness. 

Another period of painful silence happened, Sansa knowing surely what Bran has been alluding to. The more the thoughts settled in unwelcomingly into her mind, the more angered she felt herself becoming. Bran knew, more than anyone, what Petyr had done and what he hadn't. The nerve of him comparing her to the Mockingbird's devious nature struck her as an insult so incredibly terrible, yet she knew she was dis-including the other traits Petyr had shown her in their times together. Even some that were, no matter if it was in her own joy to admit, were genuine at times. But this side of Petyr, the cowardice and maskless one, was not the one Bran had alluded to. In fact for Sansa, the ladder Bran was referring to only climbed to the chaotic side of Littlefinger.

And she loathed that dearly.

"So what, you've come to lecture me that this decision is ruthless? Very well spotted..." Sansa quipped bitterly amidst the dying candle.

"And perhaps you've missed the warning of my words completely," Bran advised, prompting Sansa to face him with her grey eyes narrowed. "Like what? It's obvious what you are doing."

"I'm afraid that's not so..." Bran spoke, with a contentment that did not reach his eyes. Sansa snorted and shook her head, fighting the urge not to be too incredibly spiteful. "Well, now you and Littlefinger have something in common. Dancing around the answer when an idiotic fool stands in the middle."

"I never said you were a fool-"

"You didn't need to." Sansa interrupted harshly. "I meant no offense, Sansa I was simply advising you to stay aware. What your actions could lead to." Bran said emotionless, his smile had now faded to the blankness he wore with so much "pride". He was doing this on purpose, but in his own way Sansa felt that in his own way, he shared her the answer. But what even was this cryptic answer meant for? Her plans for contacting the unknown? Her grudging comparison to Petyr? Or everything ever possibly at once? His mind was further from hers, she took time to consider. He was on another path on a mountain while she squobbled across a valley. She oh so craved to understand what he had meant, yet something whispered to her that this was the only ounce of sheer information Sansa would get from the Three-Eyed Raven. Then why was she still awaiting something? Much like him? Perhaps he was as well, and the clarity she sought wasn't to be revealed in this moment...

"I'm afraid I mustn't stay here any longer. I've wasted enough precious time as it is..." Sansa trailed, picking at the black leather of her gloves in agitation. "Are...you staying here?" Lady Stark asked her brother, who said nothing in return. Pursing her lips, Sansa fiddled with an idea of simply taking him with her, as his irresponsiveness was quite confusing at times. Gods, Bran was just simply confusing in himself. Yet the slight of a head turn from Bran caught her eye, as he now stared ghostly at the statues of their parent's memorials. "Have a squire fetch me down here and he'll escort us out whenever I please," Bran responded. His instruction chilled her; however, as Sansa couldn't even begin to comprehend what Bran meant by staying here alone, nor what he could even mean by "us". She had thought he had only come down the dark stone walls for Sansa's fixations, yet perhaps that wasn't simply the case. And despite all, she knew it to be in her best interest to not question the Three-Eyed Raven further, lest she be subservient to another faulted answer.

With the squeak of her boots against the damp stone pavement, she turned towards the doors where snow and bristling winds would greet her with anger. All Sansa understood now was to confront Arya, who could possibly be a better asset or ally in receiving such knowledge. Just as long as she didn't ponder Bran's eerie comparison for quite too long...or even his supposed warning about chaos moving forward.

"He told me nothing," Sansa grumbled as her and Arya split their rations at the morning table. The She-Wolf had cocked an eyebrow and shook her head, picking at the ration with senseless ease. “He told you what you didn’t want to hear, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t tell you anything.”

Sansa gave her sister a shrewd look. “Bran knows something that he can’t tell me directly. Or at least he’s telling me as directly as he can, but it’s just nonsensical riddles for now.”

”Or perhaps his warning was just that...” Arya offered while Sansa scoffed in reply. Of course her sister would take the latter’s side. Sometimes she feared Arya had done so not entirely out of spite against Sansa, but of judgment blinded by the coat of camaraderie and family. Yet Sansa wouldn’t, at least in her own quizzical mind. “Why can’t you just trust his warning?” Continued Arya. “What harm could come in that?”

“What harm could come in knowing the meaning either? He hasn’t a good reason to be so vague...” Sansa trailed, trying in her might to lower her rising voice. She and her sister had garnered attention within the Great Hall’s occupants, despite the roar of jolly songs and drunken Northmen alike.

The snow had tampered down while the day crept onwards, still the nagging feeling of what could be happening to Petyr’s body would haunt Sansa in her sparing moments. Would decomposition plague the corpse yet? Have animals taken for granted the freshly dead flesh of the Mockingbird? Sansa shuddered, the thoughts making her ill. She needed to excuse his body from the pit they threw him down before something detrimental became of it. For the sake of body preservation, simply of course!

“Why do you need such a complex reason for letting the dead stay dead? I thought it was explanatory! Besides, you’re like an archer with no bow but simply arrows. You don’t even know how to resurrect a once living body,” Arya exclaimed, gaining a narrowed eye from a plump Northman who had previously been boggling down a giant amount of ale.

“That’s what I was thinking of asking Bran about. But it’s no avail as he couldn’t give me sense even on simpler topics...” Sansa mumbled, eyeing the Northman precariously.

”Simpler? This is about raising the dead, Sansa! And for selfishly stupid reasons too,” Arya reprimanded her with a near-shriek, receiving a harsh look from her sister.

”Lest you talk any louder, we’d be in the same ditch as Littlefinger is,” Sansa scolded her in a biting whisper.

Arya’s look of shock and disdain hadn’t subsided; however, as she returned her sister’s reprimand with stern disbelief. “I’m serious, Sansa. Do you even hear what you are considering? I thought this was just the rage you had pent up within you, but it seems-”

Sansa squinted her eyes and her face grew eerily solemn. “That I’ve gone mad? You’d think that low of me?”

The She-Wolf rolled her eyes. “Sansa, you know how horribly insane this is. I know you do. All for revenge against an old foe? This isn’t like you.”

Sansa couldn’t restrain the dry laugh that escaped her lips. “Maybe not the young girl named Sansa, who let Joffrey beat her senseless while parading her around like a prized kill afterwards.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

”Well it’s what I mean,” Sansa snapped, yet Arya wasn’t phased.

”I want you to understand that...anger makes us do regrettable things...” Arya trailed, causing Sansa’s eyes to widen when she paused so deliberately at the accent of anger. She dared to try and imply that she was seeking any sort of personal gain from this plot, even once, and Sansa wouldn’t hesitate to remind her sister of her hypocrisies. The Red Wolf would not allow such slander like she received earlier from dear Bran.

But...could they be onto something quite more sensical? Perhaps not in the moment, yet possibly Sansa could be able to understand that the lengths she was pushing like a wild wolf with a needle would inevitably be catastrophic. Yet, Sansa couldn’t clear her mind from anything other than the mirror with her giving recompense to the cowardice Petyr Baelish on the other side. And she wouldn’t allow that mirror to break anytime soon.

“I think I must be excused,” Sansa mumbled shortly, allowing a rise in her sister Arya. 

“You haven’t even finished your rations yet!”

“I’ve lost my appetite,” Sansa responded spitefully. “Perhaps it was my _anger._” 

Lady Sansa needn’t not wait for a snarky reply out of the mouth of Arya, for she stood with a quick start (allowing for a few gruff Northman’s heads to turn) before turning on her shoulder with the whip of her scarlet locks.

“Sansa-!” Started Arya, yet the Red Wolf didn’t allow her another glance. She needed peace and quiet for her troubled mind. Thoughts were swirling in her mind like a spider’s fine silk weave, and it was all Sansa could manage to keep herself from ripping the seems of her skirt.

Everyone was against Lady Stark in her decisions. Their rebuttals being nothing but hypocrisy to her in the moment. Certainly they’ve considered far more outlandish things? Yet hers was the crime too un-committable? By the gods, was it just her? Did they sense her to be not hardened by the world enough to lust for such revenge? 

“I’ll have their heads if they dare think such outrageous thoughts...” Sansa grumbled through gritted teeth. She followed the winding corridors of Winterfell castle to the one that led to her piping fireplace and comforting feather bed. 

At least there she’d have the comfort of silence; at least the one place where she could allow the boiling pit of anger to spew however she liked. Ironically, as Sansa pondered on her swift charge to the chamber, she had been in such positions before. Some all too familiar and bitter bubbling like unwelcome memories now formed within her mind. It had been with Jon, her only family she had thought to be left, and his stubbornness against her voice and plots altogether.

Yet then...then is when she had Petyr. 

Remembering such memories made her ball the fists that held her dress seems and bite the lower lip to avoid from enraged tears. “My only loyalty came from the biggest coward in Westeros. What fucking good does that say about me?”

And whether Petyr had been genuine or not, Sansa still swore by her word. Selfish ambition or not, she would repay his treachery with special regards from House Stark.

_Light. _

_Color._

_Laughter._

_The smell of honey and sugar wafted through the crisp, summer air of old. Mockingbirds and doves alike soared through the sky in a waltz only known by the free. Sunlight filled Sansa Stark’s crimson tresses with such a vibrant glow, as if her own hair had been set aflame with grand, god-sent beauty. _

_She wore a cyan colored gown adorned with direwolves and leaves of the godswood in swiftly sewn stitching, of which the Red Wolf could take pride in saying it was by her own artistic hand. Atop the maiden’s head laid a crown weaved in the most gorgeous of silver and platinum metals one could craft, circling around to shed into two direwolves that dove upwards as if to reach the stars. _

_Around her were surrounding thickets of evergreens, blooming in emerald glories while emitting the sweetest of aromas that passed towards her in the summer breeze. Afoot was Sansa in an open field, standing amongst the buzzing tall grasses and flowers abloom. A smile tickled across Lady Stark’s lips as pure, nonsensical joy traveled from her belly to her mouth in laughter. _

_Yet where was Sansa? Certainly not in Winterfell or the North, as this place was all too familiar, yet all too foreign at the same time. A pond was not too far from where she stood, yet Sansa could make no path out from where she could’ve came about or left alike. _

_Just then, the same, captivating laughter erupted all around her. Laughter so sweet, so full of life’s secrets and mischief, that it could only be held by children. _

_Turning her head with her brow furrowed, she saw the source of the laughter by the silver-showered pond. From what her grey eyes could see, she saw one child to be not nearly over the age of seven, with daffodils in her scarlet hair and a dress made from soft greys and blues. The other child; a young boy about the same age, had starkly dark brown hair with the same colors the girl had donned. The two children seemed to be skipping and singing around a taut fairy circle. _

_Something, perhaps in the tempting joy that radiated from the children, persuaded both of her bare feet to walk towards the fairy circle whether the children played. As Sansa grew near, she could hear their serene song elicit the flowers to sway as if in a spell. _

_“The young lady speaks to a crow with a small beak._

_He laughs and fetches her a flask. Water spilled, provided, and filled._

_The maiden’s thirst was quenched at last._

_Come the dog through a wintery-bleak fog._

_She carries a babe in the flurry._

_In her fur was a note from a lover._

_White as worry, black as blurry.”_

_Sansa almost felt tempted to sing along with the delighted children, despite the growing seed of terror that paralyzed her heart in the meadow. She managed a smile from the torture within her, feeling ill as she approached the children with every fated step. They paid her no recognition; continuously frolicking around the fairy circle with something ominous in the center._

_Sansa felt the urge to scream, to puncture her throat as if to breathe finally as her mouth squeezed shut in a grin forbade her. She wanted oh so desperately not to see what was in the gods-forsaken center, as the children’s damnable song only grew faster in rhythm. It was as if the nature of the meadow was anticipating the morbid reveal, hiding behind Sansa’s back like a cowardice shadow while she become the martyr to bear witness. And as she took another step closer, the children simultaneously stopped their twirling and dancing, now gathering around Sansa in cheeky smiles to show her the horrible centerpiece. Sansa could nearly feel a guttural scream elicit from her throat at what she laid eyes upon:_

_A severed head of a woman, too young and yet all too old. Her hair was as red as a freshly cut wound, mimicking that of her neck’s bulbous slash. Across her face was a look too hauntingly serene, her lips wet with crimson blood and her eyes aglow with a sickening blue. _

_And all the while Sansa stood in paralyzed horror, the children began to sing in much deeper, elderly voices. Repeating the last phrase of the haunting chanty, the began to dance and skip around her now. _

_“White as worry, black as blurry._

_White as worry, black as blurry._

_White as worry, black as blurry..._

_White as worry, black as blurry...”_

Sansa nearly choked with the sharp inhalation she took from such a troubling dream. Her forehead was laced with fine beads of sweat while her hair had been damp from trickles down her back. The Red Wolf frantically searched the room, her throat desperately parched by the lack of water and the taste of sourness. 

She must’ve fallen asleep when she returned to her chamber, as now the glow of morning morphed into the soft blue of evening, whipping Sansa with a fine case of hunger. 

As the Lady caught her stolen breath, she felt her heart nearly bruising her chest as if to escape. The nightmare in itself had been the most horrid she witnessed in months; possibly a year. And if she ignored the frenzied beating of her heart, Sansa swore she could still hear the eerie chanting of both children, clear as that sweat on her brow. 

Sitting up against the dank sheets of her bed, Sansa pondered with a throbbing head the nightmare that held her captive.

Was it a possible warning?

Or some sort of forsaken sight?

Did it even hold the slightest bit of relevance?

Was she truly going mad?

No, she was most certainly not going mad. It was a nonsensical night-terror, one that had been elicited by her profound earlier worries with such cruel insight. It meant nothing, as did the song. All a mind’s trick to scold her incompetence alone. The more time she wasted the worse her anxious mind got. She nearly wasted a day of good planning, despite there being no slight resilience for any of the North’s troubles until Jon came back with supplies from Daenerys Targaryen, in a hopeful wonder. 

Sansa bit her tongue back now in jealousy, her subsiding terror melting away like the perspiration against her sore back.

Jon, the true King in the North, after all. Who else would he be, and who else would she be.

Yet she couldn’t entirely blame him for the choice he had made, bending the knee to a Southern Targaryen who called herself queen. Men did stupid things in the so-called name of true, utter love. Just like another man she so very well knew-

“Sansa!” A voice from the door by none other than Arya startled the Red Wolf while she idly fret. 

Massaging her temple, Sansa rose to her feet with every bit of might she could and started towards the door. She could already hear her sister; demanding why she hadn’t been overdoing her duties upright like she had been. Or possibly, coming for another round of senseless arguing about Bran’s wise prophetic speeches. Neither sounded appetizing in the slightest to Lady Sansa, yet she needed something else to distract her aching mind from the terror and Jon.

Opening the door in a swift motion, she caught Arya’s disgusted reaction to the state her sister was in before very adamantly trying to glaze it over. Rolling her eyes, Sansa only grumbled. “I fell asleep...”

Arya nodded. “It wasn’t hard to grasp that,” she added with slight snark, eliciting an annoyed glare from the Red Wolf. “But we have greater concerns. And you haven’t the time to clean up.”

Sansa let out a tempered sigh. “I’m really not in the mood for another lecture about Bran, but so be it if it must. Why do you insist I not tidy myself?”

”This isn’t about Bran, or earlier to be frank. You need to come quickly to the Great Hall.”

Furrowing her brow tightly, Sansa now felt quite more awake. “What’s happened? Has Jon arrived?”

Arya narrowed her gaze from her sister, now eyeing the door seal with contempt.

”What?” Sansa demanded, her own voice rising. Arya rarely looked so angered or troubled, and the fact that she wasn’t answering directly just as earlier had Sansa on the verge of screaming in annoyance. 

“It’s...not Jon who’s arrived...” Arya grumbled, her tone shifting from contempt to utter bitterness. 

“Well then, who?”

As if a hot flash struck her, Arya’s eyes flicked to Sansa’s within a second’s notice. She seemed dilated, her lips nearly quivering with a force that restrained her jaw from snapped shut. She finally spoke, and through her pretentious mumble Sansa could make out simple four words:

“It’s the Red Woman.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so i may not be able to update this quickly, but i just had to pop in another chapter! anyways, bran knows more than he’s letting on about sansa’s plan, and the red woman may or may not have a tie-in with sansa’s eerie nightmare that evening as well! also, you-know-who could very well return next chapter, so that’ll be an exciting one to read! anyways, hope y’all liked it!!!


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